The Champagne Gala and Awards Ceremony on March 26, 2015 will be held in honor of exceptional women who have made laudable contributions in theatre. Following the reception at 7:00 p.m., the festivities continue at 8:00 p.m. with the presentation of the Integrity, Eternity, Rainbow, Maverick and Infinity Awards to distinguished women. (The Honorees will be announced in a separate release.)

The theme of the program on March 26 is “IN TRIBUTE TO PHENOMENAL WOMEN.”The evening will be hosted by Hattie Winston (Becker) and Ted Lange (The Love Boat). Entertainment for the evening of Thursday, March 26, 2015 will include:

Ingrid Graham: “Pearls.” An excerpted solo dance accompanied by live music. This piece explores themes of truth, vulnerability and strength in relationships. Original music performed by Melissa Sharee.

Jovelyn Richards: “Sweet Baby.” 1865. The end of the Civil War, in the aftermath of its devastation, and Maw Maw comes upon a door lying in a field that offers an answer to her question after a life of enslavement, “Free. What dat mean to me now?”

Friday, March 27, 2015 at 8:00 p.m. Theme:

Megan Dolan: “SNACK!” A humorous and sobering look at being a child of divorce that results in emotional eating, and the challenges of parenting your kids and yourself—simultaneously.

Cheryl Rae : “RIDE:A Life With Tobacco.” This is a non-linear poetic storytelling about Tobacco- the relief, the happiness and the hold.

Sharrell D. Luckett: “Young, Gifted and Fat.” Once 100 pounds heavier, Sharrell serves up interesting insights about her emotional struggle to adjust to life after her major weight loss.

Saturday, March 28, 2015 at 2:00 p.m. Theme:

“MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS”

Karen A. Clark: “The Women.” In this encore excerpt, through music, poetry and storytelling, Karen A. reflects on the women in her family, particularly her mother, who provided a “wow” factor.

Rachae Thomas: “Pieces of Cara.”Through music and spoken word, a young biracial woman takes an amusing look at her unorthodox single parent mother in this storytelling piece.

Anu Yadav: “Meena’s Dream.” This one-woman play excerpt takes an empowering look at a young girl who wrestles with her deepest fears, while still dreaming of a world where everyone, including her mother, can have enough.

Saturday, March 28, 2015 at 8:00 p.m. Theme:

“GLOBALLY SPEAKING”

Davina Cole: “All the Colours.” One woman’s turbulent journey from Africa to the U.K. explores family, civil war and upheaval.

Stacie Chaiken: “What She Left.” A young Jewish woman in wartime Warsaw with a fierce will to survive did what she had to do.

Ingrid Griffith: “Demerara Gold.” From the voice of a seven-year-old in Guyana, this young girl is left in the clutches of her grandmothers when her parents suddenly get visas to America and leave their children behind.

Juliette Jeffers: “Pan Gyul.” A Trinidadian girl in the 1950s who loves to play the steel pan drums deals with the fact that playing the drums was only meant exclusively for men at that time.

Sunday, March 29, 2015 at 2:00 p.m. Theme:

Kyla Garcia: “The Mermaid Who Learned How to Fly..” Part personal story and part fairy tale, this storytelling piece is a deep exploration of what happens when we allow romantic love to be the ground we stand on, rather than exploring our dreams instead.

Maria G. Martinez: “For My Cause Your Spirit Will Speak.” A middle-aged Latina/Chicana/Mexicana woman reflects on her journey through the Chicana Movement of the 60s that includes her commitment to the struggle, sexism, and the honorable activism of raising a child.

Katie Wong (dancer), Raissa Simpson (choreographer): “Study on a Butterfly.” A metaphoric solo dance piece questions how we relate to the internal struggles of living with pain and depression, when our outward appearance projects contradictory images of health and well-being.

Sunday, March 29, 2015 at 7:00 p.m. Theme:

“DEFINING MOMENTS”

Deborah Dutilh: “Into the Panther’s Cage.” This story chronicles how one woman’s dream state envisions what comes to pass.

Stephanie Ann Johnson: “Every 21 Days: Cancer, Yoga and Me.” At once funny and poignant, a woman’s victorious health bout ultimately changes her life through personal remembrance, spirituality and yoga.

Marsha Etell: “Big Butt Girls and Other Fantasies/The Remix.” Through music, dance and a sense of humor as healing elements, this woman gets through the unexpected by not taking herself and life so seriously.

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The Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival was founded by Executive Producer Adilah Barnes and Miriam Reed. The Festival is an annual event unique among American cultural institutions and should not be missed.

Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival is a non-profit organization. This year’s annual organizational supporters include the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, City National Bank, Department of Cultural Affairs City of Los Angeles, City of Culver City, and Adilah Barnes Productions.

Admission to the Gala is $50 or two tickets for $90 (includes light fare and Champagne). For the other programs, ticket prices this year include general admission single show tickets at $20 in advance, or $25 at the door. Students, seniors, and groups of ten or more, $18. Children 12 and under, $10.

by Tracey Paleo, Gia On The Move

Verdigris is a green or greenish-blue coating that forms like rust on brass, bronze or copper, especially with age or neglect. It can also cast an eerily beautiful glow. The funny thing about verdigris…it doesn’t just happen to brass.

It’s been said that if Tennessee Williams had been writing about the West, he might have come up with Verdigris. I would have to agree. Verdigris is as close as a modern writer might come to the kind of poetic emotional mine field Williams so thoroughly waded and hurdled in his works. Writer/actor Jim Beaver exquisitely squeezes the heart of it, for sure.

First produced in 1985 at Theatre West, Verdigris feels as new as it’s first day live on stage. This play is no mere romantic reminiscence of the past, of days gone by or dreams once lived and lost. It’s hard! As hard and frustrated and lonely and so damned moving as the horribly manipulative, Margaret Fielding, who can’t see much, use her hands or walk but can “hear paint peel”, around which the drama centers. It stares you in the face with a square jaw, blunt and uncompromising. There is no middle ground.

But unlike the decrepit house with cracked walls, flaking wall paper and far too many relics slowly crumbling into dust, Margaret a once movie star dazzling, desirable young woman, now crippled with age and illness, is still full of life. No matter the odds she keeps reaching for it. And that is the tragedy.

It’s 1972, in the small town of Edgar, Oklahoma. A young acting student by the name of Richard shows up to take a “position’ in the house caring for Margaret. As Richard narrates the past in present tense, layers of history, of anger, of failure and of love are revealed for a final moment of redemption.

Verdigris ain’t for sissies! It is a snappy, real time exposition of life in the raw endowed with plenty of grit and some truly wonderful, heartbreaking surprises. This cast is gorgeous! Every moment is played out perfectly – sometimes hilarious, often cruel, ultimately wrenching right at the heart center.

THEATRE WEST PRESENTS a Nawyecka Production a 30TH ANNIVERSARY PRODUCTION OF ITS HIT PLAY VERDIGRIS

Now playing until April 19, 2015

Written by Jim Beaver
Directed by Mark W. Travis
Produced by Charlie Mount, Jill Jones and Arden Teresa Lewis.

by Tracey Paleo, Gia On The Move

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Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth. ~Buddha

For its commemorative 25th anniversary “Properties of Silence”, produced by About…Productions in residence at The Carrie Hamilton Theatre at The Pasadena Playhouseis currently being paired in revival with a Convergence of Women’s Voices Salon Series of poetry readings, special performances, panels and discussions.

Written by Theresa Chavez, Rose Portillo and Alan Pulner and directed by Chavez, this short play melds two seemingly separate yet parallel stories together which ultimately discuss the struggle for self-expression.

It is a simply breathtaking piece!

The third part of a trilogy that deals with the inner voice as a possible source of personal spiritual and political truth, the play takes place in a multi-layered dreamscape highlighting not just its gorgeous, inspired presentation, but the very real importance of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a nun of New Spain (Mexico) who in the 17th century was an acclaimed, self-taught playwright, poetess, scientist andphilosopher.

Sor Juanafocused on highlighting and revering the beauty and necessity of earthly things, people, sciences and ideas as the real blessing of God rather than falling in line strictly behind Church dogma which was suffocating and unenlightening especially for women who were brutally repressed. She became known in her lifetime as “The Tenth Muse” and the “Phoenix of the Americas”. During her life, she also acquired what is considered to be the largest collection of scientific and musical instruments in the Americas and possessed a substantiallibrary. Before being silenced by the Church, she was commissioned by the vice-regal court of New Spain, residing in Mexico City, to write verse and plays, a number of which were published in Europe.

Sor Juana was silenced by the Church for being a woman but really, for being a woman of extraordinary intelligence and reason, attributes that were forbidden by the Church itself for women to possess. Sor Juana wrote during a time when the subjegation of women was absolute. Intelligence shown by any woman was considered and dealt with as a disobedience and even though she was completely devoted to her faith, much of Sor Juana’s writings are said to have been destroyed as part of her penance wherein she writes (or was told to write), “I, the worst of all women...”

Nevertheless, a few of her works managed to live on creating a legacy that could not be denied. Even the facts surrounding whether or not she actually signed the penance papers or that she completely conformed to her silence remain loosely in debate. She is considered the first feminist writer and a Latin American treasure. Properties of Silence is inspired by her most significant poem, “Primero Sueño” (“First Dream”).

Properties of Silence is as brilliant as Sor Juana’s works themselves. It is hands down one of the most evocative, intelligent, accessible writings imbued with considerable simplicity and empathy for all women, for all, period, feminist or not.

Set in Phoenix, Arizona and told all in poetic line and imaginary dream where the players cross time and space to meet, exchange ideas and confess their fears, the piece shifts lightly from past to present through metaphor and reality until both become one.Barbara (Elizabeth Rainey) and Tom (Kevin Sifuentes) come to grips with their troubled marriage. Sor Juana (portrayed by Rose Portillo) confronts her own imminent silence by the Catholic Church who is forcing her to silence her pen and her scientific inquiries.

Properties of Silence and the “Post-Silence” Salon Series runs Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m untilMarch 29, with one weekday matinee on Wednesday, March 25 at 2 p.m. (dark Sunday, March 22). Four preview performances take place on Saturday, Feb. 21 at 8 p.m.; Sunday, Feb. 22 at 3 p.m.; Thursday, Feb. 26 at 8 p.m.; and Friday, Feb. 27 at 8 p.m.

Post-Silence Salon Series remaining highlghts.

Red Hen Press will present poets Nicelle Davis, Laurel Ann Bogen and Amy Uyematsu on March 12 and Gail Wronsky and Alicia Portnoy on March 20.

On April 1st, April Fools day, from 8-10pm. iconic Barnsdall Art Park Theatre, 4800 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA is throwing a one-of-a-kind fundraiser to kick off the Park’s brand-new literary arts series. All Angelenos are invited to participate in an interactive evening.

Hosted by radio reporter Rico Gagliano and curated by writer Diana Wagman, Bamboozled promises to be a night to remember with live readings by four notable LA based authors, Lisa Teasley, Deborah Vankin, Bill Lambrinides and Cherry Chevapravatdumrong.

The audience then gets to decide whether or not each writer’s intricate stories are, in fact, Fact or Fiction? Signed copies of the authors’ books will be awarded to the evening’s winners.

During the performance, artist and muralist Annie Preece will be creating a live painting based on the stories told, which will be raffled off at the end of the night.

Admission is $10 in advance or $12 at the door. Food and drinks will be available for purchase. You can get tickets in advance right now!

The event has been brought to the Park by the Barnsdall Art Park Foundation and made possible by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. Bamboozled is part of the Park’s distinctive year-round programming, which also includes its famed wine tastings to movie nights.

by Tracey Paleo, Gia On The Move

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It was shocking to watch Jacob Mercer (Chris Mulkey) take off his belt and violently whip his eldest son in the final moments of Leaving Home. I daresay that is what has kept me from commenting on this play for such a long time until now. It had less to do with this show being an otherwise mostly low key performance or that it was a good show with good direction, populated and performed by really great actors or that I found anything particularly wrong with the production. It was my loathing as a human being at witnessing the family dysfunction that was presented here. It struck a heavy cord.

Leaving Home, set in the 1970s, written by Canadian playwright David French and listed as one of the 1000 essential plays in the Oxford Dictionary, is according to director Barbara Tarbuck, a love story, an immigrant-generated struggle. And I suppose seen in its full 5 play cycle it does showcase a much more intensified view of that. However, seen as a single play, it had a slightly different effect. Whether or not Mr. French intended to spotlight the subject within his text, the issue of child ownership comes directly into play.

It’s a theme that resonates as much in Leaving Home as it does in classics like Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet or A Midsummer Night’s Dream; parents forcing their children to be adults – into making adult choices and decisions that will steer the course of their entire lives, and yet controlling every aspect as to who, when, what, why, and how they will do it, deciding for them, conditionally, regardless of the intention. There is so much blame, emotional recklessness and revenge-taking in the first installment of this episodic, that it’s difficult to see how anyone is going to be able to rise above any of the issues and break free. Jacob’s eldest son Ben (Kayde McMullen) tries.

With Jacob raising his sons to be men, it’s more than just proud father parenting. Sure there is love. I’m not saying Jacob is a heartless man or even that he is simply a man of his generation. But for all of his good qualities, he is weak. And when he rips up his son’s high school diploma, threatens to cut him off financially, prevents him from taking his books, empties his suitcase of clothing, then finally forces him down onto the kitchen table for a brutal dose of, “you’re not a man”, it’s not about love or discipline or a punishment for ungratefulness or disobedience, it’s intentional hurt, anger, jealousy and resentment for not being included in both his boys’ lives and the petty household secrets they keep with their mother Mary (Karen Landry). The surface argument here is the issue of Ben moving out of the house to live with his soon-to-be-married younger brother Bill (James Lastovic). Ben actually wants to respect his father by becoming the man Jacob desires him to be. He just wants to do it on his own terms. Part of Jacob’s fear though is that his son might actually succeed and that Ben’s independence will make him irrelevant as a man and a father. It’s a horrible emasculating moment for both of them.

In fact, the very behavior Jacob displays is exactly the kind foisted upon him by his own father in a past life only regarding the issue of religion, which is the cause of the strife surrounding the impending marriage of his son and pregnant daughter-in-law to be (Sierra Barter).

It’s ugly and it’s difficult to watch; which is the very reason to see this play in the first place. If you don’t feel confronted by the family dynamics and the subject matter in some way, then maybe you’ve had a blessed life free from turmoil. I think most of us however, are going to find something deeply resonant within this play, immigrant status aside.

LEAVING HOMEruns through MARCH 14, 2015

Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays at 2pm

Now playing at the Ruskin Group Theatre
3000 Airport Avenue, Santa Monica, CA 90405.

Lexikat Artists, in association with Chapman University, is proud to present the return of IF ALL THE SKY WERE PAPER on Saturday, March 14 at 7:30 pm and Sunday, March 15 at 2:30 pm atThe Kirk Douglas Theatre, 9820 Washington Blvd. in Culver City. The play is a moving, dramatic reading of real wartime letters by soldiers, Marines, sailors, and airmen, as well as their family members at home.

Four-time Academy Award-nominee Annette Bening will be reading letters in the performance on 3/15 at 2:30. Gary Cole (“Veep”) will be reading letters in both performances, with more actors soon to be announced. More Celebrity Guest Artists to be announced – check website for updates at:www.lexikatartists.com and their Facebook page.

Based upon Carroll’s bestselling books WAR LETTERS and BEHIND THE LINES.

In 1998, Carroll launched a national initiative to honor U.S. troops, veterans, and their families by preserving their wartime letters. Since that time Carroll has traveled to 40 countries, including Iraq and Afghanistan, and has collected more than 100,000 previously unpublished letters (and now emails) from every conflict in American history.

IF ALL THE SKY WERE PAPERfeatures the best of the letters that Carroll found and also tells the story of his harrowing but inspiring journey to seek out what he calls “the world’s great undiscovered literature.” The actors portray the real-life military men and women and their loved ones at home, acting out the full spectrum of emotions experienced in times of war. From the incredible ferocity of battle to the pathos and humor of everyday life, these letters and the story of Carroll’s search will deeply move and inspire audiences.

“These letters are intimate, deeply personal portraits of the courage, sacrifice, and sense of duty that made this country.” - Tom Brokaw (on WAR LETTERS)

“From the American Revolution to Iraq, everything is here: the terror and exhilaration of…combat, love letters, funny letters, letters from civilians caught in the middle of war…”— Joseph L. Galloway, co-author of We Were Soldiers Once…and Young (on BEHIND THE LINES)

Ticket Prices range from $20 – $30.00. Running time is 80 minutes.

* A portion of ticket proceeds will support United States Veterans Artist’s Alliance (USVAA), The Soldiers Project and the Wounded Warrior Project.

**Performance will be followed by a reception with the director, writer and actors.

Located in downtown Culver City, just a few blocks south of the I-10 Freeway and across the street from Sony Entertainment Studios. Culver City Hall, behind the theatre on Culver Blvd, provides FREE covered parking. Dozens of restaurants and generous street parking are available in the surrounding area.

by Tracey Paleo, Gia On The Move

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DOMA Theatre Company’s new rendition of Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice’s 1970’s ground-breaking rock opera, Jesus Christ Superstar is simply a hit. Slightly modernized to the concept: “What would it be like if Jesus walked around now in a world of Twitter, Facebook & Selfies,” it’s many parts, Goth, glitter and new wave bohemia including girl groupies, band-aides, army greens and skin cabaret moments amped up the flair and entertainment factor for the audience. It’s an exciting, thoroughly accessible take on a classic for Los Angeles small theater and thank you DOMA for that!

Of course, it would be pretty hard to screw it up. Radical for its debut in 1970 as a concept album which topped the American pop charts and ignited controversy by questioning the divine nature of Christ, then produced on Broadway in 1971 starring Ben Vareen as Judas, and then transformed into a feature film in 1973, it still, even after 40 years, remains a global phenomenon.

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DOMA lived up to every moment starting with its powerful lead singing cast, which included downright show-stopping performances chiefly by a beatifically stylized, self-sacrificing, totally hot millennial Jesus (Nate Parker), Judas Iscariot (Jeremy Saje), Simon (Graham Kurtz), Mary Magdalene (Renee Cohen), Pontius Pilate (Kelly Brighton), and Peter (Blair Grotbeck), who belted their hearts out reaching the stars with their incredible range. And the songs that older audiences will remember hearing in and out of the theatre are still as gorgeous as they were the first time they were heard anywhere.

What DOMA also did was really step up the choreography factor this time. Truly boy follies fabulous in every way, I was only disappointed by the lack of space that some of the exceptional dancers in the chorus absolutely could have used. I got the feeling that if they actually had more room to move or if the nearly 23 member ensemble had been allowed to appear in waves and groups rather than all at once all the time, they would have been able to take the dancing to an even higher level. Never-the-less, there were really no disappointments here. Overall, every step, every note every moment, served the production well.

There are 12 more opportunities to experience this performance. Don’t miss it!

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April 29 – May 3, 2015

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